Photographer Maria Plotnikova was born and raised in Moscow, lived in South America (in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo) for several years.
Until 2010 she worked as a sports and reportage photographer in the federal media, currently Maria is a freelance photographer, working with leading Russian media and sports organizations.
She worked at such major sporting events as the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the World Cup in Brazil, the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. In 2012-105 she was a member of one of the most popular collective of street photographers Vivo. I took part in exhibitions around the world (Moscow, Buenos Aires, Paris, New York, Tbilisi, Vilnius, etc.) Maria is a finalist and winner of international competitions and a portfolio review.
Maria rarely takes staged portraits; its main specialization, as it was said earlier, is sports and reportage photography. Sometimes it happen to meet the heroes of the portraits on the streets of the cities. Maria finds them in cozy cafes, in the factories, in the shops, walking through the countryside.
The heroes of such fortuitous portraits are bright, beautiful, overt people. This persons are non-models, but are agree to pose in front of the camera, and Maria does not have to give any special instructions to achieve an expressive look or the right turn of the head. In fact, she just need to monitor the situation and say in time “please look at the camera”. Some portraits in the interior were made during editorial reportage assignments. All these photos share one common feature: Maria never uses flash and studio light. All portraits are made in natural daylight. [Official Website]
